Reporter: We in this room hear you saying, and the American people hear you saying, that President Biden inherited bad policies from President Trump.

Kirby: No. No, no, no. Bad outcomes, bad conditions on the ground. That’s what I said.

Reporter: Well, you said he reduced the force to 2,500. You’re characterizing that as a bad policy, yes?

Kirby: I’m characterizing that as a fact.

Reporter: Okay. What we hear you saying — let me finish my question, please — and what the American people hear you saying is: President Biden inherited flawed policies from his predecessor, President Biden was deprived of the requisite transition papers he should have received from his predecessor, and President Biden was deprived of accurate information from President Ghani about his intentions, and President Biden was deprived of accurate assessments from the intelligence community.

The depiction of the Commander-in-Chief that you present — or this Commander-in-Chief — is of a figure almost helpless and shaped and buffeted by individuals and forces and entities that are beyond his control when he had every option to increase the troop size there during his eight months in office, he had every option to intensify attacks on the 5,000 Taliban fighters, and so on. So what — I just don’t understand why you’re willing to depict your boss, the Commander-in-Chief, as so helpless in this instance.

Kirby: … he acted on the best military judgment and the best assessments from the intelligence community as he could, as he made these decisions going forward. And some of those assessments turned out to be wrong …

Reporter: So given the conditions, your position is everything went about as well as it possibly could have?

Kirby: My — it’s not my position, James.

Q: Why not an independent review? transparency declassify beyond the 12-page?
Reporter: Why did the administration choose not to make this an independent review?

Kirby: These were independent reviews. The after-action re- —

Reporter: (Inaudible.)

Kirby: No — no, no. The after-action reviews that were done by the Defense Department and at the State Department — they’re the two prime ones that we’re talking about here — they were done completely independently. You — you will — you’ll see that.

Reporter: Well, they’re still fundamentally his Cabinet agencies, his Cabinet leaders conducting the agency — or conducting the reviews of his actions. Why not an outside commission — outside, independent person to review what the administration did?

Kirby: Each of these agencies voluntarily conducted these reviews. The President didn’t dictate to them how they were going to conduct those reviews …

Reporter: And I know you were asked earlier about releasing more beyond the — beyond the 12-page report. And you talked about information just being very highly classified, but the President can obviously declassify anything that he wants. So would he do so in the interest of transparency, in the interest of the public knowing more about what happened with the withdrawal beyond the 12-page perspective of the NSC?

Kirby: So, again, a couple of things to remember: This is an ongoing process here.

Q: why not about accountability? A: just to learn not hunting for head
Reporter: You had said earlier this was about understanding and not accountability. I just don’t — how is this process and document not about accountability? You assign so much accountability to the Trump administration and very little, comparatively, to your own.

Kirby: After-action reviews are done to — and it’s very common practice that they are not investigations. They’re not — they’re not criminal proceedings. They are —

Reporter: No one is saying they’re criminal proceedings, but —

Kirby: They are studying — they are studying the … The idea is to learn from them … It’s not — it’s not hunting for heads.

Q: President takes responsibility for this withdrawal? A: he assumes responsibility
Reporter: somebody asked if the President takes responsibility for this withdrawal and what happened after. You answered and said he has responsibility. Does he take responsibility? And have you heard him say that?

Kirby: The President is the Commander-in-Chief. And just by dint of being the Commander-in-Chief, he assumes responsibility for the orders he gives

Q: Biden inherited bad policies from Trump? deprived of transition papers? depiction helpless?